


melt

by saltedearthsch



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 02:10:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21366460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltedearthsch/pseuds/saltedearthsch
Summary: If Ysayle Dangoulain has always been an ice queen, the lady of frozen heart, then Estinien Wyrmblood is made of dragon-fire.or: estinien finally wins an argument with ysayle. it goes well for both of them.
Relationships: Ysayle Dangoulain & Estinien Wyrmblood, Ysayle Dangoulain/Estinien Wyrmblood
Comments: 3
Kudos: 47





	melt

**Author's Note:**

> a birthday gift for my darling friend @stillthehatred on twitter! there is a distressing lack of ysayle/estinien on here, and they're a huge fan of ysayle so i whipped this up ^^

There is alcohol on his breath almost as much as the normal taste of him - strong and bitter smoke, the vague mint of either toothpaste or gum he’s chewed to cover it. The concoction wafts over her as he leans into her and she tries to ignore how uncomfortable the wall is.

“Can I  _ please  _ come in, Ysayle?” Gruff, plaintive, so uncharacteristic of the cold man she’s come to know. He is undoubtedly drunker than sin, and it is because of this that (and most certainly  _ not  _ the fact that if she lets him into her home she may try to never let him leave) she sighs wearily and gently pushes against his chest to gain an extra inch of breathing room.

“We can’t keep doing this,” she murmurs in reply, and he groans. His forehead bumps hers and the simple touch alone almost breaks her. It is only in these stolen moments, when inebriation steals away his stoic masks, that his edges soften so with her. The world has fallen away with the veil of both their hair, locking them into this vulnerable space together. It means too that she has nowhere to go when his fingers find her face, smoothing across pale skin to cup her cheek.

“Sure we can.” His tone is light, but the edge of the words cuts into her, leaking like poison into her resolve. “You and I both know it’s what we want. And neither of us is truly good-natured enough to back down from what we want.” Her snort serves as affirmation and he moves in just a touch closer, locking her in against him and the wall both. It takes all her resolve to not lean into him fully, embrace the fire that kindles between them as it always does when alone. 

“What we want,” Ysayle manages, ragged from several breathless moments, “is not important. It’s what’s right.” A dull thud echoes into her ear from the bricks, and part of her peripheral is now blocked by Estinien’s arm. He’s caged her in, entrapped her in full as he raises glowing azure to steady ice, glaring.

“Shut up,” he grouses, and then her protests are lost in her throat, stopped by the kiss he presses to her lips.

When Ysayle first met Estinien, she expected to never like him. To never once for the rest of her days enjoy his presence in her life, despite the friends in common that kept them connected. They were just so polarly opposite that camaraderie seemed an impossibility. And yet it was the friction caused that made her realize they were not opposite poles, but reflections - two versions of the same person.  _ That  _ was why they had never gotten along, always clashed, never connected. Until a situation was presented in which their differing opinions were made irrelevant, they could never see eye to eye.

It begins with a party, unsurprisingly. The first time Ysayle encounters Drunken Lout Estinien, who is the complete opposite of the man she knows during the day. Not irresponsibly imbibed, of course, but enough to alter him to a tolerable level. It is with this Estinien that she shares a comfortable commiseration, that leads to friendly conversation, and then before she can think too hard she’s in his lap and there are no more words.

She frets, of course, that with the rising sun the feelings will set. That once the cold and aloof Estinien she knows returns, he will feel only disgust and regret for what transpired between them. Instead, he is awkward, yes, but the chasm of distance that once separated them seems a tad smaller now. He engages her in polite conversation, acknowledges her existence, asks her opinion. He  _ cares.  _ And it is so wholly bizarre that she isn’t sure how to process it at first.

It is not long before another incident occurs, this time without the confident cloaking of alcohol in their systems. Estinien, she learns, does not actually drink often, but when he does he commits to the act as fully as any other. This time, however, he is fully sober when he undresses her through lip-lock and roaming hands. There is not a cloud in his eyes when her garments and his lie at their ankles and he drinks in her form like a man in a desert. The scrutiny threatens to make her wilt before him, but he wraps one arm around her waist and holds her face with the other so he can tell her how positively dazzling she is. In his arms, she melts like ice in fire.

Their trysts continue that way for some time, undefined but comfortable. Sometimes they are not as clear headed about their encounters, but there is always respect and consent. For all his arrogance and bravado he has never pushed himself on her should she object. And though her heart stings with the knowledge, it eases her mind to know there are probably others he can go to if he is truly desperate.  _ (She will never know that he couldn’t dream of it.) _

But tonight, it is all too much. The world has been crumbling around her lately, life seeming to come to a crashing, burning standstill that makes her weak and tired. Her heart can no longer go on pretending it does not crave his presence in every free moment. Her mind has tried again and again to banish the notion that she would love nothing more than to fall into him and forget the troubles of the world for just a few warm moments. But they are too similar, and she is too broken to shoulder the notion the possibility of him rejecting her desires.

And yet the way his lips captured hers is so impossibly tender, a plea to hear and feel the craving he has for her, that it washes away that carefully built resolve. Like dragonfire to a wall of ice, he melts her into him, makes her part of him. She clings to the moment, to him, like she might drop off into the core of the Earth without her deathlike grip on his hair, his clothes, whatever anchors she can reach. It lasts forever and also not long enough, aching fire building between them until it is the need for oxygen and not for  _ him  _ that forces her away.

There are very few words after that, and none of them are her feeble objections. The door is opened and then locked again within seconds. Ysayle has a brief moment of clarity to thank whoever will listen that she lives alone, so the damning trail of clothing will be evidence only to her tomorrow. But then Estinien has scooped her up, and the next thing she remembers is blue silk sheets cradling her burning skin.

If Ysayle Dangoulain has always been an ice queen, the lady of frozen heart, then Estinien Wyrmblood is made of dragonfire and it lives in every piece of his skin. At least, that is the only explanation she can lend for the way every part of him that touches her seems to consume her in unbridled heat. Before long there is nothing else to be thought of but him, no world beyond him above her and the bed below her. The heat consumes her, and she surrenders to it and its bearer in equal measure.

Estinien has had Ysayle like this several times now, and he never fails to be spectacularly enraptured by her. Every line of her face and body draws him in, calls to be mapped by his hands and tasted by his tongue. The way she gasps and calls for him with every touch is a siren’s song for the drowned man dwelling within him, and he answers greedily. There is a delicious thrill in the knowledge that he and he alone is able to melt this goddess of ice and snow. It drives him to grip her tighter, snatch patches of skin in his teeth to leave marks that will tell anyone who dares to look upon her that  _ he  _ has been the one to make her silvertongue useful for little else but his name and desperate pleas for more _ , please, please stop teasing Estinien,  _ ** _please _ ** _ — _

When he enters her, there is a moment of suspension, of rapture. He has never been terribly religious as she, but even he is wise enough to thank every deity and spare a few thoughts of worship for the way she fits around him. Neither of them speaks, breathless, and it is Ysayle this time who gently tugs his mouth down to hers, completing the merging of their dissonant elements into one. It is one of those long, languid moments that could last forever if they let it. But impatience is one quality shared between them, and it forces her to break away and gasp into his ear that he needs to move  _ now  _ dammit.

For all their dancing and tiptoeing around each other ever since that first kiss, that first night, the way they move together is as if they have had decades of practice. Though she is every bit the demanding princess he teases her to be, he is in equal subservient to her whims and complies. If it will bring more of the music that is her moans and choked gasps to his ears, he would do whatever she asked and more. 

He is sure to respond in kind, remind her that he is just as lost to the mounting pleasure as she is. There is another sentiment, teetering on the edge of his mind and threatening to tumble out his mouth that he keeps at bay, though just barely. They have never truly spoken of what they wish to be, of who they are to one another, and he would not dare force the issue. But when she wraps her arms around him, fixing her mouth to his, hard and needy, he loses control of his thoughts, and when they’re both spent, slowly coming back to Earth from on high, it slips.

“I love you, Ysayle.” 

Sleep finds its way into both of them soon, stealing the chance for a reply, not that he is truly conscious enough to be concerned for one. Alcohol and ecstasy both have made fools of his stamina, and it is with her curled into him that he finds rest. It is not until the morning, when sunlight through still open blinds forces his eyes open that he remembers. The paralyzing debate of whether he should feign ignorance or escape unnoticed, or worse actually demand an answer, grips him in the interim hours before she stirs. Frozen, he watches her shift and swipe vaguely at sleep-encrusted eyes, then squint at him.

“You’re still here.” It is a statement, rather than a question, though it holds surprise. Warranted surprise, given that he has usually left her to her thoughts by now. He offers only a mute nod, but the smile that spreads across her face is more blinding than the sunshine warming the carpet. Without preamble she wraps herself around him once more, face pressed into his neck. Tentatively, he slides his own limbs around her, locking her in against him. They remain so entwined for so long that he thinks perhaps she has gone back to sleep and makes to do so himself. Not as if there are any obligations to tend to anyway. 

Just as he finds himself slipping back into sleep, he feels her lips move though the words are hard to hear.

“I love you, too.”


End file.
